AN - I hope this link problem is fixed. I've attempted to load this chapter three times. Well if you reading this, then I've been sucessful! Thanks for letting me know.

'The days are going by so quickly,' Jim commented, watching his family bath in the pool.

Jamie loved the water. Safely in Trixie's arms, the infant stared as she poured water over his almost bald head. Jim punched holes in the bottom of an old can to form a kind of shower. Happy noises exclaimed the child's delight at the game.

Growing so fast, his hair hadn't managed to keep track with the circumference of his head. Still as red as Jim's, it shone in the August sun. At least the summer heat meant they could keep Jamie in the shade and dispense with their best attempt at home made dippers which didn't work all that well. At the end of each day, after spending a good part of it on his belly in the brown dirt, Trixie insisted they bath their son. Today Jim scored wiping and dressing duty, while his wife got to play in the water with their infant. They swapped everyday so they both spent quality time with Jamie.

'I can't believe he's four months old,' Trixie dipped the can again to the delighted squeal.

'Time to get out buddy,' Jim knelt beside the pool, reaching for his son ten minutes later, 'or you'll look like a prune.' Wrapping him in a T-shirt, he took the time to really examine the child. Now able to reach out a grab, Jamie covered his face in a game of boo. 'Have you noticed,' Jim's voice trembled, 'the green creeping into his eyes?'

'I wondered if it was just my imagination,' Trix smiled, hoping her little boy would share his father's colouring. He seemed to share everything else, proving Jim's genes to be very strong.

'I wanted him to keep your eyes,' Jim looked longingly into his wife face.

'I want him to be happy and healthy,' Trixie replied. 'I love the fact he's a miniature copy of you. No one's going to doubt who his father is once we get out of here.'

Laughing, Jim quickly diapered his son for the night. 'After more than two years down here,' he teased, 'I don't think anyone will be all that surprised.'

'Well,' Trixie suddenly turned serious, 'it's not going to happen again.'

'No,' Jim agreed, his emotions echoing his wife's, 'it's not.'

After putting the baby to bed, he made slow, gentle love to his wife. Once they'd finished, he started again, ensuring she slept peacefully, contently after the second time in an exhausted slumber. Checking on Jamie, he kissed his son goodbye. Resolving the next time he saw them, he be accompanied by a rescue team, Jim left his sleeping family.

Over the last few weeks, he'd been surveying every inch of the sheer cliff walls. June and July came without any hope of rescue. They'd been careful to listen for any signs of life outside the hole. To the best of their knowledge, it hadn't happened this year for some reason.

Trixie started her period again last week and the resumption of their sex life scared him. James Winthrop Frayne needed to get them home. He needed to give his family stability, an income and security. Most of all he needed to protect Trixie from another pregnancy. While he loved Jamie, the timing of his birth couldn't have come at a worse phase in their abduction. They needed to finish their education and recover from this ordeal. It'd be so much harder with an infant but not impossible. Together they'd cope. They'd already proved they could weather almost anything.

Breathing deeply, Jim prepared to climb out of The Hell Hole. Looking up at the long, shear assent, he prayed the small ledges would hold his weight. Choosing each new niche with care, he tested it before trusting it. At fourteen feet, the dirt beneath his right foot crumbled. Holding his breath, Jim transferred the load to the other holds. Counting slowly to ten, nothing happened. Carefully, he felt around for another spot. Finding one two feet over, James Frayne moved his right foot to its new position. Spread dangerously on the vertical wall, Jim had a choice to make. Either he kept going or conceded defeat.

Another three feet up and he could almost reach up to touch the rim. He'd chosen this section for the hand and foot holds it offered and decreased height in comparison to the rest of the Hell Hole. Ensuring his feet held firm and his left hand griped the wall, Jim started to move his right arm above his head. Inches from the lip, Jim discovered the slight inward slope of the cliff making it impossible to climb out. Cursing, he took another hour to return to the floor in utter despair at his failure.

This new knowledge gave Jim new insight into their prison. Using the light of a full moon, he walked the circumference. After his disappointment he re-examined the sheer cliffs trapping them. His prospective changed, realising the section he'd chosen actually had less of an inward angle than the remainder of the wall.

'Impossible,' growled Jim as the sun made an appearance on the eastern horizon. He had to return to the sleeping cave. Jamie would wake Trixie for his morning feed soon. If she woke and found him in this mood, she'd know.

'You look tired,' Trixie commented an hour later. Something in his expression told her not to ask. Watching his features closely, she guessed he finally attempted the climb and failed miserably. Relieved she didn't find him with a broken limb or worse, dead, Trixie counted herself lucky.

'Yes,' Jim agreed, sticking to the truth as closely as possible, 'I didn't sleep much last night.'

'It shows,' she tried again to get him to open up.

'I'll catch up today,' sighing Jim forced his exhausted body to start the daily chores. Unable to find any reason to keep up the pretence, his voice sounded flat and defeated to his ears.

It didn't matter how he tried to hide his night's activities, Jim's deepening depression gave it away. As the days passed, he slept more, neglecting both Trixie and his son. Withdrawing from life, he found his pleasure in watching his family play or keeping their only source of nutrition going disintegrating. His joy in childish giggles dissipated to the point where they actually began to annoy him. Jamie felt the change, at first crying for his father's attention, then refusing it when Trixie demanded Jim do his share. She taken over caring for all three of them and it took its toll, but Jim didn't notice. Not since the night Jonesy punished him for running away, then tied him up for three day without food or water, had he felt this low.

No, Jim's mind stated, I feel worse. I have two lives to protect and I can't do it. I can't find the energy to try, I don't want too. Everything I attempt fails making me the biggest failure. I thought my stepfather did a great job of trying to destroy my self-worth. Turns out he's a rank amateur.

'Jim,' Trixie demanded his attention. Three weeks she'd been coping alone. Fretful, Jamie woke several times each night demanding his mother's comfort. Initially Jim ignored the baby's cries. In the last few days he woken and walked out the moment his son started fussing. Having enough, exhausted and emotionally confused at Jim lack of interest, Trixie reached the last straw. 'If you walk out that door,' she threatened, not knowing what else to do, 'don't bother coming back. I need you not this…this…' bursting in to the tears she'd been holding in for days, she sobbed, 'whatever it is.'

Nodding, Jim answered a tone she never heard before. Not an ounce of the man she'd come to know and respect came through in his voice. 'You're right,' he confessed, 'you'll do much better without a failure like me around.'

Jaw dropping, Trixie knew she couldn't let him out of the cave. If he walked out, their relationship, and more importantly, Jim's life would never be the same again. 'I could have told you,' Trixie deliberately lowered her voice so he needed to strain to listen to her words, 'you'd never be able to climb out of here. You needed to know it for yourself, Jim. You needed to come to that conclusion on your own. I thought letting you try would be the answer. The night you tried, I watched from the cave mouth, my heart pounding at the thought of you falling to your death. It scared me but I had to let you do it, to prove to yourself it couldn't be done. I guess I shouldn't have bothered, it killed you anyway.'

'How can I protect you if I can't protect myself,' he demanded in a deadly voice.

Trying hard not to show her emotions, Jamie picked up on the atmosphere and began to cry. 'I'm not Jonesy,' Trixie looked him in the eye, remembering all the stories he'd told her the night after they first made love. The night he hurt her and then had the courage to make it all better. 'I'll never punish you for not living up to my expectations because I chose to love you. I chose to love all of you, including the parts you don't like about yourself.' Sighing deeply, she didn't even try to stop her child's growing distress.

'Please,' she begged, 'don't leave us. You of all people know what it's like to grow up without your father. Would you place your son in the same situation? What if I chose to remarry the wrong kind of person?'

He'd turned away from her, from her words. Jim's mind knew the pop psychology behind her hurtful, hated words. Yet it reached him on a level he'd never considered. No, his mind cried, you wouldn't do that to Jamie, wouldn't put him through what I went through. Yet my mother did. She loved my father and missed him so much she married Jonesy out of loneliness. Trix you wouldn't do the same?

Yet history seemed to be repeating itself.

'I'm not your Mom either, Jim,' Trixie placed her now screaming child on the cave floor, realising she needed to concentrate on the broken-hearted child before her.

'Why,' he let out a howl of pure pain, 'why did she do it to me? Why did she leave me with that man? Why did she let him do those things to me?' His sobs brought Jim to his knees. Trixie took him into her arms and followed him to the floor.

She had no idea Jim suffered from post-traumatic stress, or his most recent failure triggered his current behaviour. Beatrix Frayne knew she'd broken him down and now she had to build him up again. One arm around the love of her life, she took her son and forced him into Jim's arms.

'I'll never let anyone hurt our son the way you've been hurt,' she whispered. 'If you're always by my side, Jim, there will never be a need for him to call another man father. I don't want anyone else.'

Through the broken sobs, Trixie though she heard Jim promise to never leave. It didn't make her heart sing, only brought a sorrow the likes of which she'd never felt before. He needed professional help, help she could only attempt in a bumbling way.

'Happy Thanks Giving,' Trixie exclaimed, a bright smile covering her face. In the months since Jim's breakdown, they'd slowly achieve a new normal. August disappeared before James Frayne smiled again or took delight in his son's giggles. The lopsided grin vanished and Trix wondered if she'd ever see it again. However the easy physical intimacy they always achieved returned giving Trixie hope for their future.

'Trix,' Jim demanded the truth from her blue eyes, 'we haven't got that much to be thankful for this year.'

'You're still alive, Jamie's growing well, the garden produced a good crop and the usual winter weather has held off,' Trixie stated, remaining as upbeat as possible, 'what's not to be thankful for.'

Sighing, James Frayne closed his lids, lifting his face to the weak sun. He needed to face the white elephant sitting in the middle of the hole since August. 'I'm OK, Trix,' he stated evenly, 'thanks to you. Now you have to trust me when I say the depression was reactive. I know you think I've changed and I have. So have you. This place has forced us to mature, for our bond grow to the point where I could trust you enough to break down and let you build me up again.'

Facing his lover, Jim reached out. A strong hand clasping each shoulder as Jamie crawled in the dirt at their feet. 'You and Jamie are all I live for. If we never get out of this place, I won't allow myself to return to that dark place. It made me realise how much you need me, physically and emotionally. How selfish I'd have been leaving my son at such an early age. I know I can't control the future, but I can place the past in perspective and finally let the shame go.'

'When you get back,' Jim gazed into her orbs, his words heartfelt, 'I'll stand up in front of anyone willing to listen and tell them exactly what Jonesy did to me, what he's capable of and why he should be put away for the rest of his life. If it weren't for you, Shamus, for your courage in loving me completely, I'd never have healed enough to get here.'

Crushing Trixie in his embrace, James Frayne realised he had so much to be thankfully for.